


The Second Time Around

by koalathebear



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers: I lack specificity. All of seasons 1 and 2.</p><p>Notes: Birthday fic for juprujac who first ended up at my journal because of Apollo/Sharon but ended up sticking around Just Because :) Set after Lay Down Your Burdens 2, Apollo comes down to New Caprica to do some fact-finding and encounters a certain someone he used to kind of know. Gee I wonder who? :P Unbeta'd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lee glanced stood in the shadows watching silently. It wasn't his first time down on New Caprica and he realised again why he had kept his visits down to the surface to a minimum. Despite being habitable, the planet was harsh and unlovely. It had been an unfortunate day when it had been located by Racetrack. He wondered whether she ever regretted being the person to find such a desolate and bleak place. Even before the Occupation, life for the colonists had been difficult as they eked out a bare existence that could scarcely be described as living.

The Centurions patrolled the dirt road that functioned as the main road for Caprica City. Slow, unwieldy and menacing, the Centurions scanned the path before them and the humans around them scarcely glanced at them these days except to stay out of their way. 

Lee's eyes narrowed. Dee had been violently against him going down to the surface. To be honest he wasn't sure if it was purely concern for his welfare. Kara's name hadn't come up between them but a wry smile curved Lee's mouth. Trust a woman to allow jealousy to creep in even when issues of far more importance were at stake. The smile became bitter. The irony was that although things were strained to breaking point between him and Dee right now, things hadn't been great between him and Kara for a very long time. He had begun to wonder whether he was cursed.

The debate about whether he should risk going down to New Caprica had been settled by Adama in the end. They needed information if they were going to do anything about the occupation and get their people off the planet. He noted the Centurion numbers deployed by the gates of the building that served as Cylon headquarters. 

"You should be more careful. Losing your edge captain?" a voice said unexpectedly behind him and he spun around at the startlingly familiar voice, his sidearm pointing at the head of the speaker.

" _Boomer?_ " he demanded in shock, staring at her disbelievingly. A cloud of dark hair fell around her face, her dark eyes were as rich and dark as he remembered, her face almost innocent in its softness.

"But Helo said that ...." Lee began to speak but then he flinched. "I haven't been captain in a very long time, Boomer ...." he said slowly and comprehension slowly dawned in his eyes as he looked her over. "You're that one," he said softly and the expression in his eyes was very chilling.

"Guilty," she said with the saddest of smiles that didn't even pretend to reach her eyes. She was unarmed and held up her hands to show him as much.

"Just won't stay dead, will you?" he demanded bitterly. "You keep coming back". 

Her eyes dropped down to the sidearm that was aimed at her and then back up to his coldly icy gaze. His jaw was tight, his face filled with an anger that he had thought he had forgotten.

Her huge dark eyes didn't move from his face and they were filled with emotion, or whatever passed for emotion in a Cylon.

"The old man lived," he told her.

  


"I know ...." she said softly. "It was one of the first things I asked about after I was downloaded".

"Big of you," he said sarcastically. "Disappointed that you failed?" he asked her. 

She didn't flinch. She clearly expected the attack so she just stared at him steadily with those huge, sad eyes that looked as if they could see right into him past the anger and straight into the sorrow and questions he wanted to ask.

"See anything interesting?" she asked him, jerking her head in the direction of the building that he had been watching. Before he could reply, she said matter-of-factly,"There are over 39,000 survivors - most of them shell-shocked and helpless. First this frakking planet almost killed them with its toughness .... then the Occupation". An unexpected smile flickered across her face. "What's the bet that Kara's out there planning a bloody rebellion all on her own".

Lee's lips twitched despite himself. "She's not alone," he said, raising his eyebrow at her and Sharon nodded. He glanced over her, looking at her in her civilian clothing, looking for all the world as though she was off to meet a friend for lunch. "You look good," he said reluctantly.

"Wish I could say the same, captain. What _have_ you been doing. Or not doing?" she demanded pointedly. Her eyes flickered over his faintly weary look and the undeniable paunch he had developed. There was a glimpse of something that might have been disappointment or sorrow in her eyes.

"Maybe I don't deal so well with peacetime," he said, unaccountably stung by the gentle reproof in her eyes.

She frowned. "You were never much of a hawk, sir. It was peace time - you should have been happy. What went wrong?" she asked him curiously.

"I'm not here to be pyschoanalysed by a Toaster - especially not you," he said, cutting off the conversation abruptly. He didn't want to engage her. It disturbed him how easy it was to fall into a conversation with her.

She didn't speak and Apollo asked her,"So you going to take me in? Report me to your Toaster friends? As long as I offer no resistance, I won't be harmed?"

"Gaius Baltar surrendered, there was no violence," Sharon said quietly. "It was the only way. Anything else and there would have been violence. I said that we should at least try to use peaceful methods".

"You think that being under the yoke of the Toasters is considered living?"

"I thought it better than the war," Sharon said softly. "Now it gives you time to regroup, think about your options and do something instead of running through space all the time".

"Don't try and make me believe that you're on our side, Sharon," he said roughly. "I know who you are. _What_ you are".

"I'm not trying to do anything, sir," she said distantly. "Believe what you want."

"You don't have to call me sir. You're not my subordinate anymore - never really were, come to think of that". His smile was very twisted.

"Yeah I was," she contradicted him, looking at him steadily as she spoke. "You'll always be Captain Adama to me," she said with a reminiscent smile. "Even Cylons can feel hero worship," she said with a grimace. "I still remember that first day when you came onboard, you looked totally not thrilled at the honour of flying the commander's old Viper".

A reluctant laugh escaped Apollo's lips. "Awkward to say the least". 

"I'd never seen such an insincere smile," Sharon said with a laugh. "I couldn't believe you were so cool and ungrateful about it. I would have been honoured".

There was a sound and Sharon's head snapped around. Lee raised his sidearm again but Sharon shook her head, pushing him behind a large tree and raised a hand to cover his mouth even though it wasn't necessary. He wasn't making a sound, just staring into her dark eyes with a frown. The Centurions walked past with their awkward gait.

"What are you up, Sharon?" Apollo whispered, his lips only inches from hers as they stood hidden together, bodies pressed tight against the roughness of the bark.

"I'm saving your ass. Again," she told him witheringly, her eyes not moving from his.

"Trying to win my trust?" he demanded tersely.

"I'm not into lost causes, captain," she told him.

"I told you ...."

  


"And I told you, you'll always be Captain Adama to me," she countered.

It shocked and annoyed him but he could feel the the anger draining from him even though he tried to hang onto it. He wanted to hate her, to keep the rage so that he could kill her now without hesitation. 

"I can't decide about you .... will you be the shy kid who had the worst Raptor landings in history? Or the murderous bitch who tried to kill my father?" he whispered.

"Your choice," she said softly and her eyes widened in shock as he raised a hand to run a fingertip down her cheek.

"Still pining after the Chief?" he asked her.

"Chief's married .... to Cally ... got a kid on the way," she said and her voice was bleak, her eyes regretful.

Lee's light eyes were very thoughtful as he studied her face narrowly.

"Cally's no you," he said softly and Sharon's lashes fluttered, betraying her tension. She would have pulled away from him at that moment as the Centurions were well past but Lee's hand seized her wrist and gripped it tight, keeping her body against his, his face just inches from hers.

"I'm trying to understand you, Sharon. What are you playing at here? What is it you want?"

"I want to do my best to make things right," she said simply.

Lee looked incredulous. "You're unbelievable. I take it that you've never met the other Sharon? The one who's running around with Helo? The one who had a child? She's always claiming she's doing the right thing, too. She's almost got everyone believing her - but there's just one thing, Sharon ...."

"Don't say it," she said softly. "I know what I did. I know it was wrong and I tried to stop it. I tried to stop myself," she told him and Lee's eyes widened in shock.

"I thought that was an accident ...."

"An accident that I _survived_ ," she said in a low voice. "I knew something was wrong ... I didn't know what it was .. but then it was too late. I couldn't help myself but Gods .... I loved Adama like a father. Love him ..... and I see that moment in my mind over and over," she whispered. "You have no idea what it's like to live with something like that".

"He's forgiven you," Apollo said despite himself. "Or the other you anyway. To be honest, I can't guarantee how he'd feel if he saw _you_ face to face". His eyes widened as he realised that Sharon's eyes were shining with tears.

"Really?" she whispered, hope dawning in her eyes. "He's forgiven me?"

Lee stared at her, confusion clouding his face. 

"I've been avoiding the people I used to know. I don't want to see that look in their eyes. I thought I was one of them. I'd give anything to be one of them again ....."

"You're a machine, how can you ...?"

"Faulty wiring?" she asked him with a catch in her voice and Lee reached down and brushed the tear away from her smooth cheek, still looking very confused.

"So life-like," he murmured.

"I'm alive," she whispered. "I'm breathing .... I feel pain, sorrow .....I've loved and been loved, just the same as you," she whispered.

A faintly bitter expression crossed Apollo's face. "Actually, you might be one up on me," he said unexpectedly. Sharon looked at him sharply.

"Things didn't work out with you and Kara?"

"Kara's with a Pyramid player she met on Caprica. I'm ... with ... Dee ..." he said with a slight hesitation in his voice. With was probably overstating it. Being with Dee had never made him feel even a fraction of the intensity of the emotion he was feeling now as he stood so close to this woman. He couldn't explain to himself why he hadn't blown her brains out when he had the chance. Instead, his sidearm had been re-holstered and he was pressed up against her as if they were lovers of old. 

She smelt good, very good and he noticed the thickness of her lashes resting on her cheek, the fullness of her mouth, the softness of her eyes. Despite himself, he felt himself responding to her and if the look in her eyes was anything to go by, she wasn't immune to him either. He was horrified at himself for not being able to hold onto his hatred. She had done things that were unforgivable and even though Adama might have been able to let go of his hatred, Lee had always thought that his fury would be forever.

Standing so close to her now, he found himself realising that even after everything that had happened, he wanted to trust her again. He wanted to believe that she was telling the truth.

"You don't look very happy about that," she observed cautiously. She was aware that he was still standing very close to her, his lips near her cheek. "They're gone now, you can step back," she told him.

"I know". He didn't move. He didn't want to move. Frak. He closed his eyes. 

Frak.

"Things don't change. You're still a trouble-maker, causing problems and stirring things up," he said with irritation lacing his voice. He opened his eyes again and she stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Frak. Never mind," he said roughly. He studied her and then asked. "If I ask you to tell me the location of any nearby resurrection ships - will you tell me? Will you help me to end the Occupation? We have to get off this frakking rock. This isn't Caprica and it isn't Earth."

"I'll help you," she said simply.

"You'd betray your own?"

"I've never been one of them. They frakked up when they made me," Sharon said. "I'm not kidding ... faulty wiring," she said with a very bitter laugh. "They were even thinking of boxing me," she told him.

"How do I know you won't go crazy again? Shoot me this time?"

"You don't," she told him bluntly. "But I do. I know who I am now. I know what I am now and what I'm doing. I'll help". Her gaze was clear, her voice firm.

"How do I find you again?" he asked her.

She lowered her gaze, a faintly provocative smile curving her mouth. "Are you asking me for my number, sir?" she teased him and Lee's reluctant laugh escaped him again, the tension leaving his body for one brief second.

"I guess that's exactly what I'm doing ......"

**The End**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15minute ficlet: Word #156 - Mockery  
> Set after the season finale. The Second Time Around is here.

"I can't tell you how much I enjoy these nature rambles of ours," Apollo said ironically as they fought their way through the dense vegetation, struggling through mud and thick trees.

Sharon slanted a look at him but said nothing.

"Sometimes I wonder if you deliberately take the more perilous path just to make my life difficult," he said.

He held a branch aside so that she could creep through a narrow passage.

"Perhaps this is the Cylon equivalent of fun," he ventured.

Apollo's mockery floated in the air between them. "You're awfully quiet today," he commented.

"You're doing enough talking for the both of us," she countered. "Are you done bitching and moaning yet, captain?"

Apollo raised an eyebrow at her in response to her tart tone of voice but it was his turn to fall silent.

"You're the one who asked me to show you all the Cylon military locations - I'm sorry that they chose to put them in inconvenient locations that have inhospitable terrain," she told him cuttingly.

Apollo's blue eyes studied her irritated face with fascination. "Of course this is all part of my devious master plan," she told him. "Clearly I have some ulterior Cylon motive here which is to muddy up your clothes and shoes".

"You said they," Apollo said abruptly and Sharon stopped and looked at him.

"Yeah, what about it?" she demanded, stopping and staring at him impatiently. They were standing almost ankle deep in mud.

It had been weeks now. He had been coming down to New Caprica for secret intelligence forays. Adama had been sceptical and concerned at the growing closeness that was developing between Lee and Boomer or Sharon or whatever the Downloaded Cylon's name was.

"I'm concerned that she's not to be trusted, Lee. Never forget what she is".

"I know what I'm doing," Apollo had said flatly. He wondered now if she did. Sharon's dark eyes were soft and unfathomable.

"Apollo do you have a point you're trying to make because we're ankle deep in mud, sinking fast and I'd rather get out of here before they come and blast us. So please, ponder whatever it is you need to ponder, but hurry up and reach epiphany, all right?"

Apollo gave a short laugh and shook his head, his eyes filled with genuine amusement, all mockery vanishing. "No point," he told her and reached out his hand to take hers automatically and lead her behind him through the darkness of the forest.

Sharon stared down at their clasped hands, very startled. She said nothing and followed behind him, a wondering expression on her face.


End file.
